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Thursday, 25 August 2016

#RPGaDay2016 - Day 25: What makes for a good character?

I think, for this one, I'm going to hark back to what I said on day 13: the best characters have ties to the game world and to other characters - ideally both party and NPC.

There's more, of course. Depth and layers and flaws and strengths and loves and hates.

My favourite characters tend to be those with an innocent exterior hiding a steel-strong core - Kella, Plays, Svetlana and Solomon fall into this category, and Kamaya was intended to. They also all enjoy the company of others - they're gregarious and will try to befriend someone rather than murderise them. But then, I also loved Kismet and 'Mathilde', who were definitely less friendly - downright nasty, in fact. Or at least, completely uninterested in the feelings of others but living in the world on their own terms, which was interesting. And Chrissie, of course, is far from innocent on the exterior, and, though friendly, doesn't make friends with all and sundry, the way Svetlana and Kella do/did. She's a lot more conflicted. And I'm really enjoying Taji who's different again - she has a hard outer edge to her in an inversion of my usual preferences. My favourite characters do have one thing in common, now I think of it: a deep connection to the world and other characters, even if that's (as with Mathilde, whose ultimate dream was to destroy the world) a nihilistic connection.

But most of all, a good character is one the player connects with, and enjoys playing.